


Shoulders

by bloodandcream



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 21:36:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2483288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodandcream/pseuds/bloodandcream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean can remember, sometimes if he tries hard enough, when his shoulders used to be big enough to carry his little brother on. Arms out, airplane, streaking over a dirt and weeds vacant lot. Exploring, lending his brother his height, playing piggy back with chubby kid arms wrapped around his neck. Dean used to give his shoulders to Sammy all the time, when he read a good night story to his brother and they curled up together in sleep, when he kept Sam safe through a nightmare, when he kept vigil with a hand on his brother’s forehead pressed into his shoulder waiting for fever to go down. He’d always give his shoulder to his brother to lean on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shoulders

Dean can remember, sometimes if he tries hard enough, when his shoulders used to be big enough to carry his little brother on. Arms out, airplane, streaking over a dirt and weeds vacant lot. Exploring, lending his brother his height, playing piggy back with chubby kid arms wrapped around his neck. Dean used to give his shoulders to Sammy all the time, when he read a good night story to his brother and they curled up together in sleep, when he kept Sam safe through a nightmare, when he kept vigil with a hand on his brother’s forehead pressed into his shoulder waiting for fever to go down. He’d always give his shoulder to his brother to lean on.

Then Sam started to grow up, and he grew out, his own shoulders stretching and pulling back, chest puffed out defiant. Ever since Dean can remember his brother’s shoulders growing, there’s been a chip on them. Every fight with dad, every town left in the rear view mirror, every night interrupted with blood and salt, the chip kept getting deeper. If there was an epoxy patch he could put on his brother he would, but the spider web cracks from the chip just kept running down into his chest and it seems like the harder he tries to stop them in their tracks the wider they split.

Sam’s shoulders didn’t break from the fracture. He stood even taller and wider than Dean could have thought possible after the distance between them was closed again. He had a chip on his shoulders, but he still bore the weight of the world when he was asked to, when it was dumped on him, when Dean couldn’t take enough of it on his own. He wants to take all the burden from his brother’s chipped shoulders but it’s sunk down into the cracks and spread roots, and no matter how Dean claws he can’t take it all into himself. Sammy doesn’t bow under it, he doesn’t break apart like Dean does, crumbling down into dirt and dust, suffocating.

Sometimes when he’s drunk enough not to remember, he lets himself cry on his brother’s shoulders, only when it’s late and dark, when night wraps around them like a blanket and seals out the rest of the world. Sometimes he can’t hold it back, when he crawls into his brother’s bed at night like Sammy stopped doing when he was too old to be afraid of the monsters in the dark and too young to be trusted with the truth. Dean’s always known the monsters are real, they have every reason to be afraid, but he kids himself that he can ever outrun the monsters in his head. His brother’s shoulders are warm and strong when he clings to Sam like a drowning man with a life jacket. He can feel Sam’s chest move, feel it hitch, hear himself hiccup as he buries his face against Sam’s shoulders, and there are broad strong hands on him. It’s supposed to be the other way around, and it makes him feel weak, and it makes him feel safe.

He holds on to his brother’s shoulders, Sam is a mountain, bedrock, solid lean muscle keeping Dean up as he shakes apart held against the motel wall. Fingertips dig into shifting muscle, anchor there, hold tight, hold on just a little longer, sink deep enough he’ll never let go. His brother’s body is strong enough to support him, slick skin of his back sticking to the paneling, bow legs fit just right round Sam’s waist, and those shoulders were meant to be held on to. They prop up the world falling down around the two of them like a burning house, and Dean wants to be stronger for his brother but his shoulders just aren’t that wide.

Dean wakes up with his face buried in the crook of Sam’s shoulder, skin on skin along the length of both of them under motel sheets, Sam’s hair tickling his nose, his smell the only thing Dean can focus on. Generic shampoo, sweat, lingering bite of metallic blood and iodine, salt and gasoline imprinted under Sam’s pores, in his marrow, mix of smells that means too many things, but it means a reason to keep getting up in the morning, to keep moving. So Dean stands and when Sam can see him in the daylight he squares his chest and holds his shoulders straight.


End file.
